Snatam Kaur’s ‘Charan Sat Sat’ from Sukhmani Sahib on New Album, Liberation’s Door

In continuation of my interview with Snatam about her upcoming release, Liberation’s Door, she talked to me about an incredible experience she had in the studio while recording the vocals for the track Charan Sat Sat.  In listening to Snatam speak, I realized the depth of devotion and meditation that she experiences with her music, and I am just beginning to understand why so many people are so deeply touched by her music – because it comes from such a pure place within her that is transmitted to you as you listen.

Karan: Can you tell me where the chant ‘Charan Sat Sat’ comes from?

Snatam Kaur during her visit to record 'Liberation's Door'

Snatam:

The words are taken from Sukhmani Sahib which is a beautiful prayer written by Guru Arjan Dev.  Guru Arjan was an amazing poet and teacher.  He gave his life standing up for religious freedom during the reign of emperor Aurangzab by not bowing down to change his faith.  He was tortured and killed for keeping his faith.  I had always known this story and was inspired by it. 

When I was recording this track, I was trying to get into a deep space so I could sing from the purest place possible.  Each time I sang it,  I would go deeper and deeper, trying to connect with the words but also trying to connect to the life growing in my womb so my baby’s soul could be there and present with it too, since she was a part of me and a part of the process of recording the music. 

As I was chanting, I suddenly felt this shift in the space around me and had this experience of being taken to see what it was like for Guru Arjan when he was on his way to the Emperor’s Palace to face his death.  I was literally transported to that place and time – I found myself as one of the disciples carrying Guru Arjan along the road to the palace, and I knew that we were all walking to our deaths.  As I was experiencing that, I kept chanting and everyone with me was chanting.  With each chant, we knew that victory was in the power of Guru Arjan’s sacred words.  We knew that the prayer we were singing would live well beyond us.  With each recitation, we chanted more powerfully because these words were our only defense.  We felt carried forward in knowing that these words would ring through the planet through time and space for all to hear it. 

Then suddenly, I realized I was not only marching towards my own death, but also the child in my womb.  I became very emotional at that point feeling my child did not have a choice in the matter.  Then I felt this soothing presence that I recognized as the soul of my child or some wise soul telling me that my child had already given herself to the guru and was making that choice for herself.  It was a really emotional moment, but I kept singing through it.

It was a beautiful experience for me to tune into that time of Guru Arjan, because I have always known the stories, but that kind of intensity of what it must have been like to fearlessly go towards your death while having the strength of the sound current carry you there was really powerful.  Guru Arjan’s mission was to bring forward the sound current as the teacher that we show our reverence to.

Karan: What did you take with you from that experience?

Snatam: I really felt how strong the words and the sacred sound current are – even more powerful than weapons or swords. 

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Listen to Charan Sat Sat 

See the entire album: Liberation’s Door

- Karan

Tuning-In to Musicians – Mirabai Ceiba

Welcome to the first of a series of “Tuning-In to Musicians” posts where we introduce and interview various musicians in the kirtan/chant community (also stay tuned for the “Teachers In Focus” posts in the coming weeks which will do the same for leading teachers in the yoga community).

We open our “Tuning-In to Musicians” feature with a focus on Mirabai Ceiba, a favorite at Summer Solstice , The European Yoga Festival, and the Yoga-Art Festival that they produce every Spring in Mexico.

Mirabai Ceiba is a musical project created by Angelika Baumbach from Mexico (vocal and harp) and Markus Sieber from Germany (vocal and guitar). They perform a compilation of original songs in Spanish as well as newly arranged chants from different traditions of the world. The name Mirabai Ceiba expresses the influences of both India and Native Latin America. The Ceiba is the sacred tree of Latin America, where these trees are never cut but are allowed to grow very tall. “We wish our music could be like that kind of tree, with roots deep in the Mother Earth and branches extending wide into Father Sky. Mirabai is for us the wandering, the devotion, the inspiration in all the different aspects of divinity.”

Spirit Voyage: Your recent album Ocean is a beautiful weaving of Kundalini Mantra, English lyrics and Spanish. Can you explain how you became introduced to Kundalini Mantra and what role Kundalini Yoga plays in your lives.

Angelika: Since before I can remember, I was listening to Singh Kaur, Sangeet Kaur, Livtar Singh and Pritpal Singh. At my birth, there was live Gurbani Kirtan playing. After growing up attending many solstices, I went to my first Solstice and Ladies Camp on my own at 15. Attending Yogi Bhajan’s daily lectures had a huge impact on my life. Since then, I have been connecting more and more with the Kundalini Yoga community around the world, mostly through the music, and it is such a blessing to have such an immense family all around the world.

Markus: My first contact with Kundalini Yoga was in my Theater School in Berlin where we used it as a tool to open up our creative source. I experienced its powerful spirit which gave me a taste of a new unknown part of myself. Angelika brought me to my first summer solstice, and I had the chance to explore the spiritual side of Kundalini Yoga. Meditating, practicing yoga, singing and playing music together was a way of subtle communication beyond words and cultural differences. Chanting has brought an inner change in me. The vibration in the chest has softened my heart. The voice can be like a light in the darkness. You can sing for your pain, for your sadness and it can transform you. Mantra adds an even higher dimension: the communication with the universal mind.

Spirit Voyage: Can you talk to us about music and seva?

Angelika: Music is a wonderful way to serve people, as well as a very fulfilling thing to do for the soul. I have always felt in my heart that my mission is to serve as a bridge to connect different kinds of people. Two years ago, we started a Yoga Art Festival in a powerful and beautiful place near Mexico City for people to gather and learn healthier and happier ways to live their lives. This annual festival is a wonderful way to harvest the seeds that we plant throughout the year, to meditate, chant, practice Yoga, and celebrate life, friendship and family. (For more information, visit www.yogaartfestival.com)

Spirit Voyage: Can you share a meditation that you have used? Do you have a personal story of using it that you can share?

Markus: Last summer, my niece was born. It was a very difficult birth. Our whole family was worried and wanted to help my brother and his wife, but we were so far away. We began to chant Ardas Bhaee every night, praying for healing. It is such a powerful mantra in situations which seem hopeless or when you can’t find words for your prayers. The pure vibration of the mantra can give you so much trust and hope. Chanting the mantra, I experienced a clear awareness that this baby needed our family to consciously receive the soul into our lineage with an open heart and experience gratitude for the miracle of life and death.

YOGI TIP*: Prayer for Healing

• Sit in Easy Pose. Close your eyes. Put your hands on opposite shoulders with your arms crossed. Hold your shoulders well, the arms relaxed on the chest and chant Ardas Bhaee. Continue for 11 to 31 minutes. End with 3 powerful breaths.
• Inhale deep through the nose, hold for 5-10 seconds, then exhale powerfully through the mouth. As you hold the breath in, put all the pressure downward on your shoulders with your hands.
• Press them down and keep the spine steady and straight. Repeat the breath three times. Then relax.
• Continue to sit for some minutes following your breath in awareness of your deep inner silence.

Albums on Mirabai Ceiba’s playlist:

GuruGanesha Singh and Snatam, “Joy is Now” – It brings us back to the wonderful time we spent with Snatam and Guru Ganesha and all the peace family this last spring tour.

Mata Mandir Singh, “Furmaan Khalsa” – Beautiful songs…deep, vast and inspiring.

Aurora, “Aquarian Sadhana” – A gentle and beautiful way to chant for Sadhana.

Sada Sat Kaur, “Shashara” – Earthly and very creative. Humble and warm. Inner strength.

Omar Faruk Tekbilek, “Tree of Patience” – Uplifting and inspiring for Yoga and Movement.

* All teachings, yoga sets, techniques, kriyas and meditations contained in this blog entry are provided courtesy of The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan. Reprinted with permission. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of these Teachings may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing by the Kundalini Research Institute. To request permission, please write to KRI at PO Box 1819, Santa Cruz, NM 87567 or see www.kriteachings.org.

Snatam Kaur in The Intelligencer

The Promise of Peace
By Nalia Francis

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There are those who advocate peace and those who embody it. Chant artist Snatam (sun-ah-tum) Kaur is among the latter, her petite frame exuding a lucent serenity, her words, measured and earnest in conversation, emanating from a contemplative depth.

A singer of both traditional Sikh mantras and contemporary sacred music, Kaur travels the globe offering kirtan concerts and workshops — the call-and-response chanting rooted in Renaissance India — as well as yoga and meditation classes. An ambassador for the United Nations affiliate 3HO (the Healthy Happy Holy Organization)­, which encourages a healthier, more vibrant lifestyle through Kundalini yoga, meditation, a vegetarian diet and a philosophy of compassion, she even includes some of those exercises in her concerts.

So when this former food technologist brings her Celebrate Peace Tour to the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia on Saturday — including her band of sacred music icon GuruGanesha Singh on guitar and vocals, tabla maestro and composer Manish Vyas and multi-instrumentali­st Ram Dass Singh on vocals, clarinet and piano — audiences should expect more of an experience than a performance.

“Each concert that we do is a prayer for peace,” says Kaur. “We’re so impacted by the general media and by the daily stress of our lives that we don’t give ourselves those quiet moments or those moments of prayer.

“My feeling is that every single moment that we in our lives and in our minds have a vibration of peace, that is affecting the planet around us and that our collective way of thinking and existing has created the reality that we live in today. Maybe it’s harder to measure, harder to see, but I feel it’s really, really important and powerful to have inner peace.

“It’s such an important mission and I see a lot of other people starting to realize that, even though they’re working for Greenpeace or are working in Darfur or working in a homeless soup kitchen, that
we’ve all got to have that inner vibration of peace because that’s really what spreads and that’s really what will help us to change the vibration of the planet so we can make more conscious decisions as
builders, more conscious decisions as consumers, more conscious decisions as neighbors and friends. That’s really the work that we’re doing.”

It matters not that most of the chants are sung in Sanskrit, passed down from gurus in the Sikh tradition, taken from ancient texts or learned from her own late teacher Yogi Bhajan, renowned for promoting Sikhism in the West. Set against buoyant rhythms and mellifluous layers of sound, with Kaur’s crystalline vocals occasionally weaving in devotional lyrics in English — she also plays harmonium, violin and guitar — the chants brim with a quiet, though infectious, joy.

“I believe that we bring these sacred chants to life when we sing them. These chants have lived for thousands of years before me and will continue to live for years after that. There’s a real magic that
happens when we chant these words and I don’t question it anymore,” says Kaur, 35. “It’s kind of a medicine balm, a healing balm. They come from the yogic meditative tradition where the idea is you can sit down and chant these sacred words and be healed.”

She points to a letter received from a veteran of the Iraq war as an example of their inherent power.

“It was from a woman and she said, “I finally came back from Iraq and when I listened to your music, it was the first time that I could cry and begin to heal from what I had been through.’ For people who
haven’t been exposed to our music, our music is dedicated to opening the heart and giving people the opportunity to sing and to pray for peace on the planet,” says Kaur. “We believe that the power of prayer is the greatest power we have as human beings.”

Hailing from Trinidad, Colo., and later Bolinas, Calif., she was raised in a family that practiced yoga, meditation and chanting as part of the Sikh lifestyle. Kaur even traveled to India at age 6 where she met one of the master chanters at the Golden Temple in Amritsar and later returned there to study with him. But her musical exposure extended well beyond the sacred, especially since her father for several years served as manager for the Grateful Dead.

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“I got to go backstage before I really knew what they were all about. I wasn’t so much into the music but they had great candy bars back there,” recalls Kaur, who also studied violin and played in her high
school orchestra. “Today in our concerts, we do a lot of improvisational musical interludes and a lot of that comes from my inspiration of hearing the Grateful Dead.”

A budding songwriter as a youth, she performed her song “Save Our Earth” at an Earth Day concert in San Francisco before thousands, the Dead’s Bob Weir shepherding the project. Still, Kaur planned on a
career in health care, and with a degree in biochemistry, landed a job formulating cereal flavors — “behind every cornflake, there’s five Ph.D.’s,” she jokes — for the Oregon-based Peace Cereal company after college. Her singing on the job, however, inspired the management to support and serve as an early sponsor of her recording and performing career. Today, she enjoys international appeal as a New Age artist, her albums, which include “Live in Concert,” “Anand” and “Grace,”
selling by the thousands each year.

“When I started on my first tour, I wasn’t sure if this was the right thing,” says Kaur, who lives in New Mexico with her husband Sopurkh Singh Khalsa, now touring with her for the first time as her road
manager. “In the past couple of years, I really feel that I am answering an inner calling and really doing the work that I’m meant to do.

“My name is Snatam, which means “universal,’ and I always learned that your name is something to live up to, to live by, so I’ve been really inspired to reach out to people of different faiths, different paths
and different cultures. … For me, my bottom line is whatever opens the heart and gets people to sing, that’s what I’m going to do.”

Sound Stage appears every Tuesday. Naila Francis can be reached at (215) 345-3149 or nfrancis@phillyBurb­s.com

Click here to see all of Snatam Kaur’s Music